She came here and she told me that you mob get out from here, if not I'll burn this tent and everything.

Noel Nabegeyo speaks of a police visit to the bush camp he shares with Wilma Robertson

Noel said he was recently dragged out of "bush camp" by a police officer who then threatened to burn his home down.

"She came here and she told me that you mob get out from here, if not I'll burn this tent and everything," he said.

Police denied his account of the incident. But they did not contest Noel's mounting debts due to fines from drinking and loitering.

Noel said his debts totalled $15,000, with the money regularly deducted from his fortnightly welfare payments.

Noel and Wilma are on the public housing wait list. That wait is more than seven years. Many of the Territory's housing commission flats have been recently demolished, meaning numbers of longrassers are swelling, homeless advocates say.

Criminalising our people for their poverty, their homelessness, their disadvantage.

June Mills, Longrasser Association founder

There are no government statistics about how many homeless people live in Darwin.

But June Mills, who set up the Longrasser Association, said she thinks there are up to 3,000 people sleeping rough.

She said over the years the situation for the Territory's homeless has become worse, not better.

"I'm frustrated, I'm angry, but what can we do?" she said.

"Like I said I have been talking about this stuff for so many years but they don't listen, they don't care."

She said authorities were targeting homeless people more frequently.

"Ultimately they just get fined so much that they end up in jail. That is what happens and that is part of the plan as far as I am concerned — criminalising our people for their poverty, their homelessness, their disadvantage."

She called for more emergency accommodation and stated that many people who live in the long grass will also die in the long grass.

I'm getting sick, no-one is supporting me to put on my power and water.

Miriam Ashley, One Mile Dam resident

Families at One Mile Dam look after each other. The community shelters people who might otherwise end up in the long grass, and numbers can fluctuate from 40 to 100. Miriam has lived at One Mile for nine years, and for the past three years she's had no power or water at her house.

"I'm getting sick, no-one is supporting me to put on my power and water," she said. She said she was constantly afraid the land would be taken from residents' hands for redevelopment. One Mile Dam, a collection of run-down houses and tents, is prime real estate on the edge of a sacred billabong and on the outskirts of Darwin city. In the last year, housing estates including Kurringal and Runge near the centre of Darwin have been demolished to make way for new private developments. New public housing has been built further from the centre.

Meanwhile, the NT Government has been pursuing a contentious policy of increasing the urban density of Darwin. There has been a construction boom of city residential apartments, mostly housing single transient workers in the mining and resources industries. Critics of the policy say it has changed Darwin's social fabric.

If people don't have mental health issues when they start out there, they certainly will end up with it.

Marg Egan, advocate for the homeless

Marg Egan, the daughter of one of the Northern Territory's most well-known administrators, Ted Egan, has worked with Darwin's homeless for years. She spent a period of time homeless herself, and says people in Darwin are too judgemental of those without a home. "We have sick old first Australians, who are dying before our eyes, and often quietly dying," she said. She has seen how life in the long grass takes its toll. "If people don't have mental health issues when they start out there, they certainly will end up with it — there's no stability, there's no safety, they are continuously moved on," she said.

She wanted people to be more compassionate. "Homeless people are part of our community; don't think you are immune to it," she said.